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Gene Therapies for Cancer: Strategies, Challenges and Successes
Author(s) -
Das Swadesh K.,
Menezes Mitchell E.,
Bhatia Shilpa,
Wang XiangYang,
Emdad Luni,
Sarkar Devanand,
Fisher Paul B.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of cellular physiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.529
H-Index - 174
eISSN - 1097-4652
pISSN - 0021-9541
DOI - 10.1002/jcp.24791
Subject(s) - genetic enhancement , cancer , targeted therapy , biosafety , medicine , transgene , bioinformatics , gene , computational biology , biology , cancer research , microbiology and biotechnology , genetics
Gene therapy, which involves replacement of a defective gene with a functional, healthy copy of that gene, is a potentially beneficial cancer treatment approach particularly over chemotherapy, which often lacks selectivity and can cause non‐specific toxicity. Despite significant progress pre‐clinically with respect to both enhanced targeting and expression in a tumor‐selective manner several hurdles still prevent success in the clinic, including non‐specific expression, low‐efficiency delivery and biosafety. Various innovative genetic approaches are under development to reconstruct vectors/transgenes to make them safer and more effective. Utilizing cutting‐edge delivery technologies, gene expression can now be targeted in a tissue‐ and organ‐specific manner. With these advances, gene therapy is poised to become amenable for routine cancer therapy with potential to elevate this methodology as a first line therapy for neoplastic diseases. This review discusses recent advances in gene therapy and their impact on a pre‐clinical and clinical level. J. Cell. Physiol. 230: 259–271, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.